


In the Middle of Your Picture

by TheCheerfulPornographer



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Thor (2011)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Dom/sub Undertones, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Porn With Plot, Romance, Suit Porn, Voyeurism, post-battle issues, uniform porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:51:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCheerfulPornographer/pseuds/TheCheerfulPornographer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming down after a mission is always rough — the longer the mission, the rougher.  </p><p>If Clint thinks about it like a drug trip, that's because it is.  You can't inhabit an altered state of consciousness for that long without having a little difficulty readjusting to the view at ground level.  And after a mission like this one, it's going to be even worse.</p><p>---</p><p>Phil could easily find out where Agent Barton disappears to, what he does in those days after long missions. He choses not to. He choses to allow Barton his privacy in this, since the man gets so little of it elsewhere.</p><p>Every time Clint pulls another disappearing act, Phil hopes to God that he's making the right choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clinton Francis Barton, codename "Hawkeye"

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Matter of Proportions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/290320) by [sirona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/pseuds/sirona). 



> So this pairing came out of nowhere and hit me like a truck. A sexy, sexy truck.
> 
> All of the clothing!porn in this is heavily inspired by "A Matter of Proportions" by sirona. I highly recommend you check out the image links on that fic; I guarantee you won't regret it.
> 
> Title from the song [All I Need](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY4APDrl66s), by Radiohead.

Coming down after a mission is always rough — the longer the mission, the rougher. 

If Clint thinks about it like a drug trip, that's because it is. You can't inhabit that altered state of consciousness for too long, without having some problems readjusting to the ground-level viewpoint. And after a mission like this one, it's going to be even worse.

Hawkeye's been up top for 18 hours, waiting, jumping from one perch to another. He does what he can from the air, while on the ground, the situation progressively worsens. The agents are pushed back closer and closer to their own base, and the kingpin continues to stubbornly ignore their little trap, and show no sign of appearing. Eventually it takes Coulson himself, wielding a great big fucking hulk of a grenade launcher that Hawkeye has never seen before and instantly lusts after, to drop the five giant troll things that seem to act as field commanders. They fall one after the other, like dominoes, and then _finally_ the Big Bad decides to show his face. 

He pops in with a cheesy-as-fuck cloud of black smoke, Dr. Something-or-other, and falls over dead 1.46 seconds later, with an arrow driven so deeply into his eye socket that the tip of it protrudes from the back of his skull. With their master dead, the troll things all seem to turn into stone, or go dormant, or _something_. Point being, they stop trying to wreck downtown Manhattan. (And what _is_ it with monsters and downtown Manhattan? Seriously, what do mad scientists have against Brooklyn and the Bronx?)

Point being, mission accomplished. Point being, Hawkeye can come out of sniper mode, can become Clint again, after 18 hours. Eighteen hours straight — it's a long time, to be inhabiting a world made only of wind speeds and angles, and breath after breath after slow, steady breath.

Point being, that isn't as easy as it sounds.

Clint can feel it starting already, as he swings down the side of the cell tower he was using. 

He always pictures this post-battle feeling as fire ants running through all of his veins. It's like a sort of manic electricity that he can't use, and can't disperse. It's like all of the movement he _would_ have been making and all of the thinking that he _would_ have been doing is now built up and crashing, with no way to escape. All of it was given over to wind speeds and angles, to shot after perfect shot, and now it's all rebelling.

The 24 hours after long, intense missions are some of the shittiest times of Hawkeye's adult life. And that's saying quite a lot. 

He refuses to let people see him like that. No one, not even Natasha, gets to see him lose control. 

There's a place he usually goes to when they're in town, the attic of some abandoned house in a rundown neighborhood, where he shuts himself away and does pushups and pullups and handstands for hours, until his muscles are all screaming and he can't see straight. Usually that's good enough. Usually working himself to exhaustion makes the fire ants shut up and go away, and he can finally sleep.

Sometimes it doesn't work, on particularly bad days. At that point, Clint usually moves on to liquor, drinking until he blacks out. When he comes to after a night like that, he feels like absolute shit, but it's a _sane_ sort of shit, so at least that's an improvement.

Once and only once, even that hadn't been enough. He'd woken up hungover, feeling like someone was drilling in his skull, and he _still_ couldn't think or stop moving, or stop feeling like the world was pressing in on every side.

That time, he'd had to go in search of violence, get himself in the middle of a gang altercation and piss off both sides. The electricity finally dissipated while he was busy getting wailed on by eight gangsters, after he'd laid out twelve of their associates. He hadn't allowed himself to bring along knives, or his bow.

Luckily, he'd managed to escape from the hospital before they could identify their John Doe.

Today is feeling like it might be that kind of thing, again. Clint isn't looking forward to it, but it's nothing he can really fix. He readies himself to slip into a nearby alley with a lowered fire escape. It's high time to get the fuck away.

"Barton!" 

Fuck.

He stops, because he recognizes that voice and knows that he has to, even though Agent Coulson is the last person he wants to see. Is the last person he wants to see _him_ , right now.

Clint spins on his heel, whirling gracefully around and working to retain his semblance of calm, as Coulson —

_Fuck._

Clint had noticed, while he was up top, that Coulson was wearing field armor. Of course he had. But when one is busy being wind speeds and angles, anything identified as friendly is pushed off to the side, put in the little box marked "extraneous factors".

Anything like, for example, the fact that Agent Coulson — who is notorious for always wearing a suit and tie, even in the field — is currently kitted out in _extremely_ form-fitting grey field armor, with straps and buckles in olive green. Field armor that seemed intentionally designed to highlight his good features, such as broad shoulders, a flat stomach, well-formed thighs...

Clint carefully does not allow his eyes to flicker down Coulson's body. His handler is nothing if not observant; meanwhile, Clint is a sniper. He can see things without needing to look right at them. 

Everything that he sees right now is making his mouth go dry, and causing the muscles of his stomach and thighs to clench. He swallows heavily, and hopes that Coulson doesn't notice. "Sir."

It's not as if his reaction comes as a complete surprise. Clint has been nursing a crush on Coulson for years, and it's only been growing over time. Phil — Agent Coulson is intelligent, capable, and wears a mask of mild blandness that Clint just _aches_ to peel away. He wants to find out what's underneath, and then to write his name all over it. Every flash of humor that Clint has ever been granted, every glimpse of carefully-concealed emotion, just makes him hungry to know more.

And Coulson is a fellow agent and his handler, and has shown no signs that he would ever, ever be interested in anything close to the things that Clint imagines, night after night in bed. (And in the mornings in the shower, and occasionally during his lunchbreak in a supply closet, but that only happened twice so no one needs to know.)

He doesn't want Coulson to know that the sight of him now — outfitted, for once, like the deadly weapon that he genuinely is — feels like something out of Clint's most private fantasies. And he _really_ doesn't want Coulson to know that he is trying to memorize every detail without appearing like he's looking, for future fantasies. And he _really, really_ doesn't want Coulson to know that Clint is starting to develop a little (well, not _little_ ) problem down below, which could quickly become apparent to the casual observer, thanks to Hawkeye's own field armor.

"Barton, good work. I'd like to see you in my office in 30 minutes, so that I can debrief you about this mission."

That's odd. Usually Coulson does the ground troops and front-line agents first, before getting around to Barton, several days later. After all, they have a direct private channel at all times during missions, so Coulson's voice is always in Clint's ear, and vice-versa. Generally, what the one knows, the other does as well.

Clint is so thrown off by the vision before him that his mind can't even form a proper question. All he can do is mutter, "Yes, sir". He thinks he would probably agree, right now, to anything that Agent Coulson asked him. 

He's proud of the fact that his voice still sounds calm and level.

Coulson nods again, turns neatly and precisely (everything he does is neat and precise, Clint badly wants to mess him up, make him lose control), and strides away. Clint carefully examines the windows of a building just above and to the left of Coulson's retreating frame, and pretends like he's checking angles and not focusing every atom of his body on the flexing curves of Coulson's (round, firm, incredibly attractive) ass as the agent walks away. 

It's not until Clint is striding toward the closest safe building that he realizes he doesn't actually feel too manic, right now. The frantic energy crawling beneath his skin is lessened; he doesn't feel like he needs to move _quickly and right now_.

It seems that Coulson in field armor is an effective distraction, just like exhaustion or alcohol.

\------

30 minutes. Alright, he can do this.

There's absolutely no way that Clint can go into Coulson's office with a raging hard-on. But the electricity of arousal is like a filter, transmuting his jitters into a pleasant rolling wave of heat that runs through his entire body, outward from his hips. Clint is in no hurry to let that alchemy go. 

He barges into the makeshift restroom, locking the door and jamming the handle for good measure. Then he sinks onto his knees, and spends 5 or 10 minutes just running his hands up and down his thighs, over his stomach, across his chest. The uniform is tight, and though it would stop most bullets, he can feel every touch through it. 

He focuses on his breathing, _inhale, exhale_ , and stops moving whenever his arousal grows too strong. He tries to turn his mind away from devastatingly handsome agents in tight armor. Instead, he replays every shot that he's made in the past 18 hours, silently assigning each one a rating in his personal system. Nothing scores lower than a 7 out of 10 this time, which is good; he won't have to work himself too hard in correction. He reviews each shot carefully, and then files it away in the corner of his mind where he keeps every shot he's ever taken.

By the time he's finished, this familiar mental discipline combined with slow-building arousal have him in a relatively relaxed state. (He could still take down anyone who entered in 3 seconds max, leaving them flat on the ground, disarmed, with a knife against their neck. This is invariant.) It's only at this point that he allows himself to turn his mind back to Coulson, and to his new favorite image. 

The thought of Coulson in his armor causes Clint to press his hands against his legs, and curl forward slightly. Heat arcs through his body as he runs his mind over the strong lines of Agent Coulson's body, the way the material — some sort of high-tech Stark Industries synthetic, fuck if Clint knows what it is — clung to Coulson all over, moving with him.

Coulson moves with the least hesitation of anyone that Clint has ever known, aside from Natasha. But the two are very different; her confidence carries a price, a necessity of detachment and a certain coldness. Phil, on the other hand, covers his well-earned confidence with an unassuming, inoffensive warmth toward everyone, all the while continuing to be a stone cold badass.

Clint's hands are curled into the waistband of his pants, digging against the sensitive skin there. Finally he allows himself to picture in great detail Agent Coulson's waist and thighs and hips and crotch. Clint has exceptional vision and an almost inhuman eye for detail, so it's no trouble to recall the exact curve of the fabric between Coulson's legs, the shading that indicated, ever so subtly, the contours of what lay underneath. Clint carefully presses one hand against his own groin, and lets out a harsh breath that echoes within the empty bathroom.

He closes his eyes then, ignoring the bead of sweat that trickles from one temple, and flicks open his belt-clasp. As he draws down the fly, he imagines curving two fingers through the zipper-ring that dangled, teasing, at Agent Coulson's neckline. He slowly draws down the front zipper of Coulson's field armor.

He's seen Agent Coulson shirtless, of course — naked, in fact — and Coulson's seen him, just as he's seen Natasha and Damon and Marcus and Tyrone. (You don't really get to be body-shy, as a field agent.) But the nakedness of a shower, or gods forbid a medic station, is very different from the nudity that Clint imagines now. This is nakedness slowly revealed, Clint's hands parting the fabric piece by piece to expose pale flesh thinly scattered with dark hair, a beautiful contrast against the thick grey fabric. 

As Clint runs a thumb over the head of his cock, he imagines his own fingers — blunt, calloused, incredibly agile — teasing lightly over dark tan nipples that rise up into peaks beneath his touch. He imagines Coulson's stomach, flat and well-muscled, as powerful as the rest of the man, flexing as the agent moans.

He can't imagine Coulson's face like this, so Clint doesn't even try.

Now he's gotten to the part in this mental striptease where he peels the fabric away from Coulson's thighs, and Clint is sliding both hands slowly up and down his shaft. Hawkeye has formidable self-control when he so chooses, and it takes every ounce of it not to come when he imagines grinding his hips down against Phil's, feeling them touch and and slide and press together, flesh to flesh. Clint shakes and trembles at the image, losing himself for a moment in the imagined feeling of Phil moving with him, arching up to meet him.

Phil wraps his strong, powerful legs around Clint and pulls them together, so close together, as he throws back his head and comes with Clint's name in his mouth. Clint can actually feel it, hot and slick against his belly, and god it's good, it's something that he wants so badly. Clint loses it. He moans Phil's name back, not caring what he sounds like, along with something impulsive and silly like "love you, so much". 

Then Clint makes the mistake of opening his eyes, and realizes that the come on his belly is just his own. To add insult to injury, he might have said those last few lines out loud. That was in no way part of the plan.

He curls over and just rests his head against the cool concrete floor of the bathroom, the silence reassuring him that no one is around. He breathes and stays like that for a long moment, waiting out the aftermath and the trembling and the weakness, letting it all pass through him and away.

He feels... okay. He really feels okay, for now. The frantic feeling isn't gone, but it's blunted, temporarily sated. He can already feel it starting to return, but for now, it's fairly quiet. Quiet enough that Clint can sit through a debriefing without making Coulson question his mental fitness. He thinks.

Because Clint has a clock in his brain — it's one of those sniper things, like the visual memory and his shot index — he knows when 25 minutes have passed. It's almost time to go see Phil — no, Agent Coulson. (He's got to get that right in his head.)

As he cleans himself up with a paper towel and cool water, he allows himself to finally imagine Coulson's face. As he zips himself up and checks that no part of his armor is out of place, he carefully calls to mind Coulson's hands holding a pen, scratching on paper, filling out incident reports, curled around a mug of coffee, tightened into fists as he punches a bad guy. Agent Coulson's voice in his ear, dressing Clint down for inappropriate chatter. His handler, his field partner, his _commanding officer_. (Even if Clint sucks at taking orders.)

Clint straightens up, clutches the edge of the sink tightly for 2.7 seconds, takes a deep, shaky breath, and prepares to go debrief.


	2. Agent Phillip [classified] Coulson

Phil Coulson has been working with Agent Barton (codename Hawkeye) for more than six years. In that time, they've completed 50 missions, each of which was deemed a success.

In the field, they run together like smoothly oiled machinery: Coulson's voice in Hawkeye's ear, Hawkeye's eyes above the crowd, and the proof neatly provided in thousands of perfect shots. And after it's over, after the bad guy is taken down or the hostages are rescued or the city is saved, Hawkeye disappears. Every time, without exception, he vanishes for a period of time lasting between 6 and 48 hours, the length of his disappearance positively correlated with the length and intensity of the completed mission. (Phil has a spreadsheet.)

Phil is a very intelligent man — intelligent enough to admit when he doesn't know something. For example, he freely admits (to himself only) that he in no way understands Clint Barton. And when it comes to the health and stability of his number one sniper, he is loathe to interfere with a system that seems, on the whole, to work. Phil's used to working with "eccentric" agents; SHIELD tends, for whatever reason, to draw people with certain issues. So he fully understands that someone with Clint's background and psych profile is going to have some unusual habits.

Phil could easily find out where Agent Barton disappears to, what he does in those days after long missions. He choses not to. He choses to allow Barton his privacy in this, since the man gets so little of it elsewhere.

Every time Clint pulls another disappearing act, Phil hopes to God that he's making the right choice.

\------

He doesn't intend to interfere with Barton's routine, today. It's purely accidental that he happens to be making a circuit of the scene, surveying the damage, when he sees Barton descending. But something about how Barton holds himself is off, _wrong_ , and Phil's heart kicks up a little at the thought that Clint might be injured. (It always does that, every time.) 

Phil has stood watch over Barton's hospital bed seven times, and hated every moment of the terror that it brought him. He doesn't _do_ that, not for any agent. He left, each time, before Clint awoke.

The whole thing is messy, too confusing, and he'd just as soon not go through it again.

He hails Agent Barton, and watches the man's back stiffen like he wants to run away. Barton doesn't seem to have any visible injuries, but there's definitely something amiss, a glazed-over look to Barton's eyes and a twitchiness to his posture. His left hand flicks closed and open, almost too fast to see, in the way that only happens when he's craving the long curve of his bow. He meets Phil's gaze with a strangely blank expression, a flicker of his eyelids the only movement, and it's worlds away from Clint's typical insouciant grin.

Phil is concerned. He's seen a lot of agents in the aftermath of battle, seen the full spectrum of ways in which they cope. He's developed an instinct for which ones need to just be left alone, which ones need to cut loose and go out on a bender, and which ones require specialized attention. Despite the lack of obvious damage, Barton is triggering those instincts, and all of them are screaming "Don't leave this man alone."

Still, he might be wrong. It doesn't happen often, but it _is_ possible, despite what the junior agents think. The battle was a slog but they've been through slogs before, and this one they won cleanly, without casualties. And even now as Phil watches, Barton's frame is starting to lose tension, his eyes becoming less blank under Coulson's careful gaze. 

A compromise seems prudent. Phil can give Barton a little time alone, to do whatever he needs to recover, and then Coulson can check in and assess the situation. Yes, that feels like a wise plan.

"Barton, good work. I'd like to see you in my office in 30 minutes, so that I can debrief you about this mission."

He'll have to juggle a few things around, reschedule Shriya Patel's debriefing, but that's okay. For Clint — for Agent Barton, it's okay. Barton responds with a "Yes, sir," and his voice sounds close to normal, so Phil just nods and turns. 

Before he does anything else, he wants, _needs_ , to change back into his suit and tie. Truth be told, he despises the field armor, and only wears it when it's absolutely vital. It always makes him feel weirdly self-conscious, as if people are staring, like there's a spotlight shining on him, even though everyone around him is wearing the same thing. A suit and tie is Phil's protective coloration, letting him fade into the background, exactly how he likes.

He has one pressed and waiting in his office, of course, but first he swings by the unofficial breakroom to grab coffee. (Thank God, there's coffee.) The area is noisy with decompressing agents, so it takes a few minutes for Phil to get his coffee and head back to his private field office, his favorite perk of rank. It's not until he's sitting down in his desk chair and starting to unzip that Phil notices the sound of deep, slow breathing in his ear. Breathing that isn't his own.

He knows immediately from the pattern and the timbre that it's Barton. (How many hours has Phil spent with that rhythm, mirroring Clint's breathing, matching it with his own?) Usually he loves to hear Barton's breathing, because it signifies safety. It means that Hawkeye is alive and well, standing at Phil's back, watching over all of them.

But right now it just means that Hawkeye left his comm on, which is awkward. Whatever he's doing right now (yoga? meditation?), Phil really doesn't need to know.

He's about to get on the line and tell Clint, when the breathing gives way to a barely-audible moan. Phil sits straight up in his chair and touches his earpiece. Was he wrong before, is Clint injured after all? He wouldn't put it past him to keep something like that hidden, if it was an injury that Hawkeye considered "minor". (Hawkeye and Phil Coulson do not see eye-to-eye on what's considered "minor injury".) He's about to break in and demand Hawkeye's location, when he hears another moan, this one a little louder, and then the breathing speeds up, and... oh.

_Oh._

Thank God this is their private channel, so there's no danger of Clint being embarrassed in front of other agents. (If that happened, Barton would play it off with boastful innuendo, but Phil knows what it really means when Barton's right hand twitches like that and he'd just as soon not have to see it.)

What Phil Coulson should do right now is rip out his earpiece and put it somewhere far away, where he can't overhear something that he has no right to witness.

....Yes, he really should take out that earpiece.

....

This is unethical, he should respect Clint's privacy, and never mind the fact that he's wondered... Well, never mind what Phil's wondered, in the middle of the night. Never mind that he's learning some of the answers to those questions.

....

Phil is a strong-willed man, but the end, he just can't do it. Instead he shifts himself in the chair, field armor unzipped down to his waist, and curls his fingers tightly around the arm rests. This is the new guideline: he'll listen, but not touch. He will keep his hands still.

He'll just sit here and imagine Clint Barton with his hand wrapped around his cock, stroking himself, while his other hand drags across his chest, pressed against one nipple. He'll imagine that god- _damned_ sleeveless top that he's resolutely been ignoring for years, picture it hanging open, unzipped, showing off Clint's really amazingly perfect chest. He'll imagine Clint's belt dangling free, those tight-fitting uniform pants pulled down around his thighs, Barton too rushed and desperate to remove them any further, and his hands moving quickly as he works himself toward completion. Phil can well imagine Clint's body; you don't do 50 missions with a guy without seeing his body, and besides Phil has a lot of... practice, with that image. He can easily picture Clint's cock, flushed pink and full, as it nudges up against his well-muscled stomach and disappears in and out of his hand.

The one thing he can't imagine is what Clint's face might look like: his expression, the set of his eyelids, the exact curve of his mouth.

In his earpiece, those soft breaths speed up into deep gasps and ragged exhalations, mixed with quiet moans and whimpers. Phil wonders if Hawkeye is always this quiet. He would have expected Clint to be loud and uninhibited, with a filthy mouth. (He may have explored this question in great detail, several times. Phil is thorough.)

But what does he really know? Maybe sex is the way to finally get Clint to shut up. Or, maybe he's somewhere he could easily be overheard. (Phil wishes that last thought didn't make his heart race quite as much as it does. He'll have to examine it more, later.)

He stirs uncomfortably on his chair, trying not to grind against the seat for pressure. It's extremely difficult to ignore the heavy fabric of his armor rubbing against the tip of his cock, providing not nearly enough friction — or the lightning-bolt of sensation when his thighs brush together, or the way the cool air makes his nipples harden. Phil clenches his fingers tighter around the arm rests of the chair, giving thanks that they are metal because plastic would be breaking, and inch by inch he battles back the urge to wrap his hand around his cock. (Either hand. He's versatile.)

This is not a thing that he will do in his field office, sitting behind his desk. It _isn't_. He may be doing this, but he's not _doing_ this — as if that makes anything okay.

Clint's moans continue to build as he draws close to orgasm. Phil forces a deep slow breath in through his nose, and prepares to ride it out. He expects Clint to finish with a sigh, or maybe an explosive exhalation. He definitely isn't expecting Clint to murmur his own name.

At first Phil thinks that he's hallucinating, but then it happens again and yes, that definitely sounds like "Phil", even distorted by the comm and the low roughness of Clint's voice. He starts up from the chair in shock just as, quite clearly, Clint gasps out something that sounds like "love you, so much."

Phil tears the earpiece out of his ear and flings it across the room, staring at it as if it has attacked him. He's trembling, his entire body beaded in sweat, and he doesn't care anymore about his own erection. _Did he just say..._ Oh, fuck.

Oh, _fuck_. He... _me?_ Was Clint thinking about...

Phil collapses back down, lays his head onto the desk, and tries to breathe slowly. When that fails, he just tries to breathe at all.

After a minute, when his heart is no longer quite racing, Phil looks at the clock. It's 4:26, and Barton will be here in 4 minutes.

Shit, _Barton_ will be here in 4 minutes, and Phil will have to face him, after all of that, and here he is a complete and utter wreck. Not at all the field commander, not at all the calm, put-together agent that he's supposed to be.

At moments like this, when Phil doesn't know what to do, he knows exactly what to do. In a life full of chaos, a routine can be an asset. He takes three deep and calming breaths, and runs through full conjugations of his ten favorite Ukrainian verbs.

Then, Phil Coulson goes to put on a suit.


	3. Coulson / Barton

When Hawkeye enters Phil Coulson's office, the senior agent is sitting twisted around in his chair, tying his left shoe. The shoe is dark grey, not black, and so impeccably polished that Clint could shoot from its reflection. Coulson isn't wearing a jacket or a tie, and his dress shirt (white as snow, with subtle stripes in a very pale blue) has the top three buttons undone. 

Clint stumbles to a halt and stares at his handler. He's unable, this time, to gracefully hide his shock. 

It is unheard of for Phil Coulson to be anything less than perfectly put together, on every occasion. This rumpled, half-dressed Coulson is far more shocking than if Clint had walked in on him naked, or dressed in women's clothing. (Clint has seen Coulson in women's clothing. The man pulls it off unsurprisingly well.) 

He can't stop his eyes from flicking down to Coulson's neckline — the vulnerable throat, the shadowed line of his neck, the unexpected stripe of skin. Another image for the file. Those few inches of neck and chest, right at this moment, are doing more for Clint than an entire line of pole-dancing underwear models.

There seems to be something wrong with Clint's internal clock, because he has no idea how long he stays frozen, staring at Coulson's neck, possibly drooling. It's at least a few long seconds. When he catches himself, he has to resist the urge to smack himself upside the head, like a malfunctioning appliance. 

Yes, something's definitely gotta be wrong with him. Coulson's hands look like they're moving in slow motion, the way targets sometimes do during the heat of battle, when Clint is lining up a whole sequence of shots. But there's no battle here, no target. It's just Coulson, doing up the remaining buttons on his shirt.

Watching someone put their clothes _on_ definitely shouldn't be this hot. 

It shouldn't feel like Clint is witnessing something incredibly private, intimate even, as Coulson's elegant fingers slowly push the shiny disks through their holes and coax each one into place. (Fingers, holes... Clint hates his brain, sometimes.) The crisp white fabric slowly hides the inches of chest, the throat, the neck. Then the shirt is buttoned, and Clint is left staring at the curve of Coulson's jaw. A little muscle jumps there, but Coulson stays quiet, still. He doesn't make a dry remark, or tell Clint to sit down. He just reaches silently for the tie draped over his desk. 

Today's tie is a solid color, a midnight blue so deep it's almost black, with a subtle raised pattern that Clint aches to rub his fingers over. Coulson slings it around his neck in a loose motion, and then effortlessly loops it over-under, into a perfect Prince Albert knot. (He would be good at knots, wouldn't he? Clint's mind quickly runs through a cycle of images involving strong hands, elegant fingers, silk ties, knots, wrists, ankles, and bed frames, before he loops back to the fact that he's standing in front of his superior and fantasizing about bondage. _Again._ ) 

Somehow the tie conspires with the shirt to bring out the blue in Coulson's eyes, and oh, that combination _really_ isn't fair. He pulls it smooth in a single practiced motion, and then reaches around to draw his suit jacket on. The coat is jet black like his trousers, standard-issue. (Coulson tends to wear his colors closer to the skin.) He pulls it on in a burst of fluid motion, runs his hands down the collar (so pale against the black), and then just... stops. He doesn't stand, doesn't greet Clint, doesn't wave him in from where he's standing with his back against the door. He just freezes and stares, like he doesn't quite know what to do next.

The thought of Coulson at a loss makes Clint squirm, and suddenly it's all wrong. His heart is beating way too fast, he's burning up. He should be running, should be fighting, should be _doing_ something to make his heart to beat this fast. There has to be a reason. Something besides that bead of sweat at Coulson's temple. 

Clint stays by the door, leans into the cool metal and tries to let it hold him. Tries to let it cool him down. 

It doesn't really work.

His right hand twitches again, and Coulson is still just staring, like he's trying to drill into Clint's brain with those fucking awful eyes. Clint needs to leave, fuck, let them write him up for it later, he needs to get the fuck out of here right now, before he does something really stupid. Like irrevocably stupid. Like, "kicked out and sent for psych evaluation" stupid. He's a half-second away from throwing the door open and fleeing, when Coulson seems to snap out of it all at once.

He clears his throat, nods at Clint like it's a normal greeting, like they haven't been staring in silence for the last five minutes, and waves at him to come closer to the desk. Clint takes a single step forward, trying to hang back a little and keep some breathing space. The coldness of the metal is long gone behind him; Clint still feels like he's burning, distantly wonders if he's ill. 

And maybe Phil is sick, too, because he doesn't pull up to the desk now and slide his fingers together thoughtfully, like he's supposed to. He doesn't make _that_ face, the almost-a-smile-but-not-really, the face that he makes to start a debriefing. Phil Coulson loves routines, everyone knows it. (Clint has this theory about, like, living amidst chaos and controlling what you can. He understands it, does the same in his own way.) But that's not what Phil does now.

What Phil does now is stand up, smooth down his suit coat (pale against black, and Clint is ruined for black fabric, will never be able to see it without getting hard again) and take six slow, measured steps around the side of his desk, shoes slapping crisply against cracked linoleum.

Phil is nothing like a cat, not really, but Clint is somehow still reminded of a panther stalking prey. There's something restrained about Phil's movements, like he's trying not to spook him, and Clint bites back a laugh because it's not like he could move right now, not even if he wanted. Not with Phil looking at him like that, stalking slowly towards him. Phil draws to a halt in front of his own desk, right on the edge of Clint's personal space, close enough that Clint can feel the air stirring from his breath.

He swallows and waits, and does his best to stay still. 

\----

Phil remembers the way Clint's eyes followed his hands, the way they focused on his neck. He remembers the way Clint started to tense up when Phil froze, like he was about to run. When Phil wasn't in control. 

And he still can't get that voice out of his head, saying "Phil", saying "love you, so much".

He thinks he understands, now.

He thinks he knows what he can do.

When he steps off to Barton's left side, Clint's eyes sweep back to the front to stare off into the distance. It's a sign of trust, and Phil feels winded at the gesture. That Clint trusts him enough that he doesn't need to watch him, that he will let Phil walk around behind his back, even right now. 

Phil will do whatever he can to deserve it. (Clearly he hasn't been doing a great job so far, if he's let all of this get past him. That changes _right now_.)

He circles the other man slowly, taking his time, letting Clint feel the weight of his gaze. He knows that Clint gets checked out often, by men and women alike, gets skimmed and scanned, and even catcalled. (He's had to avert his own eyes, often enough.) But he has to wonder how long it's been since Clint has just been looked at, just _seen_ , without judgment or assessment. 

Phil doesn't need to assess. He's known for a long time what he likes.

He stands close enough to share body warmth, but not quite touching. He takes his time, savors the view and the fact that he doesn't have to hide, that he can look openly, and that Clint will let him. He takes in those notorious biceps and shoulders, runs his eyes down Clint's back and imagines a caress, down his narrow waist to the equally infamous buttocks. Then hips, thighs strong from crouching and running, calves well-muscled from jumping roof-to-roof, slender ankle that Phil would die to kiss. Then sturdy boots and ground, and back up the other side.

He knows that he can't touch Clint, that he shouldn't. Not because of regulations or any such bullshit — regs went out the window when he didn't remove his earpiece. It just isn't what Clint needs, in this moment. But Phil is a tactile man, deep down inside, who tends to express himself through physical affection; and he wants Clint to know damn well that he is appreciated, wanted. That he is loved. So he compromises, uses his eyes instead of hands, and hopes that Clint gets it. That he will know what Phil means.

When Phil completes the circuit they once again stand face-to-face, but Phil knows, and knows that Clint knows, that their relationship is irrevocably changed. Phil could, at this moment, go sit down and begin a standard briefing, and that wouldn't make any of this go away. It would always be there, hanging in the air between them. 

That would be the coward's way out, without a question. And Phil Coulson may be many things, but cowardly isn't even _close_ to being one of them.

He stares at Clint, keeping his face impassive, and mentally runs through his conclusions. 

_One:_ maintain a semblance of control at all times. Clint started to freak out when it seemed like Phil was at a loss. If Phil is in control, then Clint doesn't have to be — he can relax, not worry. 

_Two:_ keep it simple. This is not the time for talking. He can tell that Clint isn't really in his mind right now; he's wholly in his body. He needs movement, needs action. Keep it simple. Keep it physical. 

_Three:_ allow Clint an escape route at every moment. Don't touch him, don't surround him. Don't box him in.

 _Four:_ Phil happens to know that Clint had an orgasm approximately 20 minutes ago — and from the sound of things, it was a pretty thorough one. Based on his age and current level of exhaustion, Clint is still well within his refractory period. This cuts off certain options. 

The solution is obvious, once he considers all of the factors.

He clears his throat. "Barton." His voice comes out ragged, like he's been running. His skin feels feverish, but Phil tries to play it cool, leaning back against his desk, laying his hands against the surface. Clint needs to him to be calm. Just like during a mission.

"Sir." Barton's voice sounds just as wrecked, but his frame is still loose, without that awful tension. Good.  Hypothesis supported.

He can pull this off, he can. For Clint. 

_Keep it simple. Keep it physical._

"Get down on your knees." 

It's an offering disguised as an order, and they both know it.

"Yes, sir." Barton drops without a question, settling down on the ancient linoleum, and Phil's legs turn into jelly. He knows better than anyone how well Hawkeye regards orders that he doesn't want to follow. He was fully prepared for the agent to run out, or to punch him in the face, if he read the situation wrongly.

He collects himself, takes in the sight of Clint on his knees. His head is bowed slightly, and Clint's gaze is fixed somewhere around Phil's knees. His eyes are a little bit unfocused, but his breathing is loose and easy and his shoulders are relaxed. Phil shuts his eyes, storing a memory for later. 

Usually Clint is handsome — devastatingly attractive, even — but right now, like this, he's truly beautiful. His hard lines are all softened just a little, loose and relaxed within his skin, as if a great weight has been lifted.

Phil takes a measured step forward, moving slowly, until the tips of his shoes tuck up under Clint's knees. He's hard, has been hard, maybe never stopped. Clint looks up then, directly at it, lips parted. Phil reaches down and casually unzips himself, the fly only, leaving his pants buttoned and his belt buckled.

"Keep your hands flat against your legs." _Keep it simple. Single point of focus._

"Yes, sir."

Phil takes a deep breath, slowly exhales, and frees his cock out from his boxers. His thighs clench and tremble at the light touch of his hand, and he knows it's going to be a trial not to come to soon.

"Clint." He has to stop, thinks he didn't mean to say that. Not like that, with his voice full of emotion. 

He tries again. "Now suck me off."

\----

"Yes, sir." 

Clint is full of gratitude, feels gratitude swarming up his throat, pressing against the inside of his skin, making his eyes go watery and blurred. 

Phil understands. Phil is giving him this, and all Clint has to do is say 'yes, sir', a phrase that he utters a hundred times each day. 

Phil knows. Phil _understands_.

He'll think about it all later, and freak out then. For now, he just opens his mouth and leans forward, resting his lips for just a second against the tip of Phil's cock. Our first kiss, he thinks, a little giddy. 

Phil is longer than he expected, but it's nothing Clint can't take, nothing that he hasn't done before. He parts his lips and slides them all the way around the head, and flicks his tongue a few times before he inches forward, closing around the shaft. Phil makes a little noise, like a quiet gasp of shock, and Clint looks up at him and _oh_. 

So _that's_ what Phil looks like, when he's making love.

His eyelids are low and heavy, the pupils huge and black. He stares down at Clint, his eyes full of something like that looks like wonder, and Clint doesn't understand it, but it makes him want to please. Phil's cock is heavy in his mouth, rigid and smooth against the roughness of his tongue as he takes it in, pressing forward so far that the head bumps against the back of his mouth. Clint swallows around it, knowing that it will make him gag a little, not caring because it will make Phil feel good. 

He watches Phil's hands spasm and clench at the desk behind him, white-knuckled. He watches him battle not to move his hips, not to move his hands, and loves him for it. Loves him for knowing exactly what to do, exactly how to make Clint feel safe, loves him for the fact that he's still fully clothed in his perfect Phil Coulson suit while getting sucked off in his office, and if anyone else came in right now, all of Phil Coulson that they would get would be his hands and face. But Clint gets so much more of him than that.

"Good... ah, that's good..." Phil grinds out as Clint sucks around him, pushing down to the base and then pulling off, back up to the tip, where he swirls his tongue along the underside again before heading back down. He keeps his hands obediently on his legs, and is grateful that he doesn't have to think about what to do with them. This he understands, this he knows, has done it a million times. But it's also _Phil_ , it's Phil's cock in his mouth, and that makes it special beyond special. A gift, worth any number of missed birthdays and lonely Christmases.

And he'll freak out about it later, he knows that, but even that's okay really because Coulson gave the order, Coulson made the first step and all he had to do was say "yes, sir", and _my god_ how is the man so perfect, how does he _understand_?

"I want you to swallow when I come." It's the first thing between them that isn't phrased as an order, and he'll freak out about it later, but maybe he won't, at all. So Clint just closes his eyes and focuses on rhythm, building and building, taking Phil up to the edge. He tastes weight and heat and solid flesh, and it tastes like Phil, all of it tastes like Phil, and holy shit, he now knows what Phil _tastes_ like. Phil makes a noise that's almost like a growl, some deep and primal sound that no one would expect from the man wearing the suit. Wrapped all over in fabric, coming in Clint's mouth. And Clint's name is in there somewhere too, distorted. 

He tastes it on his tongue, his own name and Phil's, together, and it tastes like salty bitter and hot. Clint licks and swallows, licks and swallows again.

Phil's orgasm seems to last forever. When he looks up again, Phil is biting his knuckles, two of them pressed into his mouth, eyes closed tight. It's the least controlled that Clint has ever seen him, including that time that Phil was in a coma; but somehow Clint doesn't mind, because they're both in there together. 

Phil's whole body is hunched forward as if to cover Clint, like he's trying to wrap around him without touching. And Clint loves that too — loves him for the wanting, and even more for the not doing.

When Phil's cock finally stops pulsing and starts to get soft, Clint runs his tongue around the shaft once, twice, seeking out any last lingering traces of come. He makes sure Phil is thoroughly clean, and then he pulls off with a pop, and looks up at Coulson. The other agent is flushed, sweat running down his forehead, staring at Clint. The look in his eyes is deep like galaxies, and equally uncharted.

Clint stares back, unsure what his own eyes are revealing, but willing to trust that Phil will keep it safe.

It's only when he drops his gaze that Phil gently orders, "Put me away." And in some ways that's the hottest thing yet, Clint running his fingers along the zipper of Phil's pants, feeling the metal teeth drag against his calluses, curling them up in the silk of Phil's boxers (midnight blue, they actually match his _tie_ , sweet jesus), setting him back to rights. It feels like forging a secret, something kept between them. 

Like hiding all of Clint's confessions where they will be kept safe, tucked away behind layers of wool and misdirection. 

Clint pulls up the zip with careful fingers that don't shake, ever. Then he sits back on his heels, returns his hands to their position, and waits. He has absolutely no idea what's going to happen next, but he finds that he isn't too concerned.

Phil will take care of him. Phil knows what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story just keeps on sprouting chapters! I think there's only a short epilogue left, though.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's commented and kudos'd so far. I think this fandom is my New Favorite Thing.


	4. Clint & Phil

In the end, that first time, Clint still leaves. 

Phil has another agent coming in 5 minutes and there's no lock on the door, no good way to reschedule, and it wouldn't be Phil to skip out on his appointments. But it's also not like Phil to make an important decision without gathering relevant information.

He sinks down onto his knees in front of Clint, and slowly, careful to telegraph his intentions, rests their foreheads together. "Tell me what you're going to do now, if I let you leave," he orders.

Clint knows that he can't lie, might never be able to lie to Phil again. "I'll run away."

"Will you come back?"

"After I sleep."

"Agent." His voice is sharp, and Coulson pulls his head back and looks Clint in the eye. "Will you return _unharmed_?"

Clint has to take a moment to think. 

Finally he lifts his head and says, "I don't plan to do anything that might cause myself harm."

That seems to be enough. Phil dismisses him with a rough edge to his voice that promises affection, and a verbal threat that they'll "talk about this more, tomorrow". Clint almost wants to say that he might not be home tomorrow, might not be ready to talk about this yet. Might _never_ be ready. But he can't make himself dispute the order when it's given in that voice, so he just nods. 

"Yes sir, I'll be there." (He'll just have to _make_ himself be ready.)

Clint is at the door when Phil calls out to him again. "Barton!" Clint turns halfway. 

Phil is looking at him, and Clint almost wishes that he would order him to stay. Almost, but not quite, because then the fear rises up in him, and he really doesn't want to be afraid, not around Phil. (He thinks that he might not be, given time.) 

As if Phil understands this, he only raises his hand like it's a blessing, and says, "Be kind to yourself. Come back to me tomorrow." 

Clint nods, and slips away.

\---

When he exits the SHIELD offices Clint starts running, but not in the way that he runs when something's chasing him. 

He runs and runs and doesn't let himself slow until he reaches his secret hideout, 10 miles down the road. He swings himself onto the roof and in through the narrow window, and crouches on the dirty wooden floor. 

He's sweaty and breathless, but his body feels light and loose and easy. Nothing in him clamors to be let out; his mind is silent, empty, consumed with neither ants nor angles. Waiting to be refilled with the details of everyday. He straightens up, stands, and soaks it in for a moment.

So this is what it feels like to be free.

After stripping down and toweling off, Clint collapses onto the narrow mattress. The sleep that comes is satisfying, dreamless, and deep.

\---

Phil sits down at his desk, feeling rather weak and boneless, and wishes that he could bring Clint back. He wants to wrap himself up in the other man's body, curl into his warmth and drift away, but that isn't possible right now. He'll have to content himself with the promise of tomorrow. 

Phil is a patient man, and well willing to wait. What happened today is most assuredly not the end of things; it's hardly even the beginning. He wonders if he will someday look back and view this date as an anniversary.

He should probably make a note about it, just in case.

He reaches down in his desk and pulls open the right-hand drawer, taking out a tall stack of identical black notebooks. He skims a fingertip down the pile, and pulls out the seventh notebook from the bottom. The cover is unlabeled, but the pages are filled with dense, handwritten notes.

This is the fifth of his "Clint Barton" notebooks. (The previous four are locked up in his apartment, back home.) 

Phil keeps notebooks for many agents, one for every person with whom he works. But he's written far more words about Clint — 3.7 times as many, at current count — than he has about any other person in his life. 

He flips it open to the first blank sheet, and uncaps his second-favorite blue pen. He takes a moment to remind himself of SHIELD's thoughts on privacy and the likelihood of interception. Then across the top, in neatly slanted letters, he writes: "Debriefing Protocol 13". Down the side he marks out a list of numbers from 1 to 30, perfectly aligned and even. 

Beside the number 1, he fills in today's date, and the approximate start time of Barton's "debriefing". Next to it, he fills in a string of letters and numbers that look like gibberish to anyone without the proper cipher, which is recorded only in Coulson's mind. 

The text translates roughly to "best blowjob of my existence", and also, "I think that I'm in love".

He lifts the pen and taps it against his lower lip — thinking, calculating. Reviewing what he knows of Clint's behavior, compared with what he saw today; mapping possible courses of action to the desired response. After a moment, he lowers the pen again, and draws a tiny asterisk next to the number 5. 

After the fifth time, he'll ask Clint to stay. 

Phil sets his pen down, and starts planning how to do it.

\---

In the end, all of Phil's careful planning comes to naught when, after their third "protocol 13" debriefing (subtype b(2): anal sex, P.C. receiving), Clint climbs up onto Phil's desk and promptly passes out. His left arm knocks over a cup of pens that scatter on the floor, his right arm hangs off the side of the desk, and his face is smashed up against a stack of expense records. 

Those papers will be covered in Clint-drool by morning; Phil's seen him sleep before. He sighs, and resigns himself to rewriting them. 

After a long moment when Clint's breathing slows and deepens, Phil picks himself up off the carpet. He removes and hangs up the tie that he's still wearing, then climbs up behind Clint, curling a gentle arm around his waist. Phil closes his eyes and gives thanks to the God whose existence he questions, for bringing him this. (Those childhood Lutheran habits still die hard.)

For surely his life is a miracle, and a blessing.

\---

They sleep for six hours and then go out for breakfast, where they get into an argument about pancakes versus waffles. 

It's a beautiful morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's enjoyed this story and left comments or kudos! It's my first entry into this fandom, and you all have really made me feel welcome.
> 
> Coming up next: a different sort of fix-it.


End file.
